All sorts of great music is coming out of Japan these days, as any true J-pop fan knows. And some of the most interesting stuff is the music that can be included under the rubric "soft rock."

In North America, soft rock refers to the music of early '70s masters of mellow such as the Eagles and Jackson Brown, but here in Japan, it means the pop-rock hybrid associated with producers Curt Boettcher and Roger Nichols as well as groups like the Association and the Millennium. When the introduction of multitrack recording in the mid-'60s made it possible for even the most technically incompetent rock groups to make records, Boettcher, Nichols et al. continued to uphold the virtues of melody and harmony in concise, beautifully arranged pop singles that contrasted with hard rock's self-indulgent Sturm und Drang.

With the late-'80s reissue by Pony Canyon of Nichols' classic album "Small Circle of Friends," the seeds were sown for Japan's soft-rock movement. Under the tutelage of sensei such as Tatsuro Yamashita and his then-manager, Yoshiro Nagato, musicians eager to find a new stylistic template began to get heavily into the soft-rock vibe, and now bands such as the Great 3 and performers such as Kahimi Karie are making brilliant, homegrown soft rock.